Complaints Policy

GMA LLP's Policy for clients:

We are committed to providing a high quality service to all our clients. When something goes wrong, we need to know in order to resolve your complaint as soon as possible and also to improve our methods of working.

The complaints procedure is intended to enable learns, potential learners, clients and the general public to bring matters of concern about their learning experience to the attention of the academy and enable investigation of those concerns with the aim of a satisfactory resolution. This process provides welcome feedback to help improve services provided by ‘Glasgow Maritime Academy LLP’.

Dealing with complaints:

Stage 1 Front-Line Resolution

Frontline resolution aims to quickly resolve straightforward customer complaints that require little or no investigation. Any member of staff may deal with complaints at this stage unless they are the subject of the complaint or have a clear conflict in the matter. In this instance the complaint should be handed to a first line manager within the department or school for resolution.

The main principle is to seek early resolution, resolving complaints at the earliest opportunity and as close to the point of service delivery as possible. The college encourages students to speak to their tutor, course leader or relevant manager and explain the problem in the understanding that these staff may be best placed to deal with the situation immediately.

Front-line resolution may involve referring the customer to the relevant College Policy and / or Procedure where this provides a more appropriate route for the issues to addressed and resolved.

When will it escalate to Stage 2 Investigation

- where the member of staff considers the nature of complaint to be complex or high risk or of a high profile and damaging to the reputation of the academy

- when the customer is dissatisfied with the resolution.

- when the customer requests that the complaint is handled at Stage 2

If you have a complaint, please contact us using the form below at first instance

If you are disatisfied by the outcome of your complaint at the 1st Stage then you can contact our external officer :

1. We will send you a letter acknowledging your complaint within three working days. We may at that stage ask you to confirm or explain any details.

2. We will record your complaint on our central register and open a file for your complaint. We will at that stage also investigate the complaint by examining the matter file.

3. We will aim to be in a position to write to you in detail with our findings within twenty one days of our acknowledgment of your complaint. However, where that is not possible because, for example, further enquiries need to be made we will write to you to explain the stage the investigation has reached and how soon we expect to be able to provide a full reply.

4. Under the procedures set out by the Ombudsman Services, there is an overriding time of eight weeks for the full conclusion of any complaint.

If you are still not satisfied, you can then contact:

Enquiries and Reporting Centre

Office of Fair Trading

Fleetbank House

2-6 Salisbury Square

London

EC4Y 8JX.

Apart from above procedure students can also complain to BACS directly. The procedure for this can be downloaded here.